1. Field of the Invention
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to providing available codec information, and more particularly, to providing available codec information, in which a user can easily recognize available codec information by providing codec information and the information about whether there is a codec to an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) in a digital-broadcasting environment that supports various types of codecs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as new broadcasting environments such as Internet Protocol (IP) television (TV) and satellite broadcasting appear, services that use various types of codecs are being provided.
Further, broadcasting stations are trying to send high-quality images using various types of codec, but because only MPEG-2 codecs are provided in current TVs, various types of codecs cannot be supported, which is a problem. As such, new TVs that support various types of codecs are appearing.
However, the technology, which effectively informs the system or the user of codec information or information about whether there is codec in the current digital broadcasting environment, has not been developed.
FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a related art broadcasting system and EPG screen.
As illustrated in FIG. 1A, a broadcasting operator 11 transmits broadcasting signals using various types of media such as cable, IP, and satellite. As such, a user receives broadcasting signals transmitted by the broadcasting operator 11 using a set-top box 12 or a digital TV (DTV) 13, and views a program (i.e., broadcasting content).
In order to display broadcasting content in such a system, the broadcasting operator 11 provides an EPG screen.
As illustrated in FIG. 1B, a related art EPG screen has a horizontal axis which indicates time, and a vertical axis which indicates each channel, and thus broadcasting content of each channel by certain time slots can be recognized.
EPG data transmitted by the broadcasting operator 11 is parsed, and the parsed information is provided at the EPG screen. The EPG data consists of packets and includes a title of a broadcasting program, a broadcasting time, a channel and other broadcasting information. The EPG data is transmitted to the set-top box 12 or the DTV 13.
In the operation of a broadcasting system, the broadcasting operator 11 first transmits EPG data, where the information such as the title of the broadcasting program, the time, and the channel is included, for the delivery of the EPG content. As such, the set-top box 12 or the DTV 13, which receives the EPG, parses the data, and displays the data in the DTV 13.
Next, in the case where the user selects a channel through the displayed EPG channel, the MPEG-2-type broadcasting content, which is transmitted by the broadcasting operator 11, is transmitted via various networks such as a satellite, an IP and a cable. The MPEG-2 is decoded in the set-top box 12 or the DTV 13, then is displayed in the screen.
However, because the current set-top box 12 or the DTV 13 support only MPEG-2, it is impossible for the broadcasting operator 11 to provide high-quality services using a new type of codec.
Korean Unexamined Patent Application No. 1999-013612 (entitled “Broadcasting-Receiving Apparatus and Data-Broadcasting Method”) discloses an apparatus and method that shows whether there is a decoding software program in the program through the EPG. However, it does not mention a technology that searches the position of the codec, changes a result value on the position of the codec into an expression of time which can be easily recognized by a user, and displays the expression on the screen.